


And Stones, For Deliverance

by penandfink



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-14 03:10:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penandfink/pseuds/penandfink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Catelyn meditates before the commencement of her father's funeral rites. A short mood & feelings piece, not much more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Stones, For Deliverance

**Author's Note:**

> Written July 12, 2012 for a friend on Tumblr. Prompt: "And what of the dead? They are more like stone than the sea would be if stopped. They refuse to be blessed, throat, eye, and knucklebone."

She was first on the battlements, as she knew she would be. Her uncle stood directing the bearers of her lord father’s corpse below, and in his voice she could hear no trace of fatigue, for all that their vigil had outlived the long night. She did not expect Edmure; Edmure would come when he would come.

She thought it would have been different, being there with him at his own bedside, holding his hand in hers. She thought that would have made the loss easier to bear. Foolishly she had hoarded a year’s worth in guilt for leaving Ned behind, not realizing that it is never the dead who are left behind. In the fading light, when Maester Vyman had bowed his head and Uncle Brynden had turned away in tears, Catelyn watched Lord Hoster change from father to stranger to mad man, until he was not a man at all. He did not see her even as a shadow, or hear her even as a howl.

Briefly she had blazed at his impertinent selfishness. He was closing himself to her and felt no regret for it. Even in his most restless days as a man, he had turned back, there upon the high ridge, and waved to her from his gelding to let her know he had heard, and would return. He knew, he _knew_ what she would feel when he left, what she felt now, and only the heartless would do such a thing to her.

Absurd, of course. Lord Hoster could not know the absence of himself any more than she could know what it was to die. _Yet one day …_

The thoughts flitted away into the morning mist at the sound of her brother’s heavy arrival, and Catelyn did not chase after them. _How far he will drift_ , she mused, as the ripples from men’s steps disturbed the glass surface of the river. _Away into the rising sun, until the flames eat his sail and the stones drag him down to the primal beds below._ Beyond that, no man alive could say, and dead men told no tales.

 _Let him go_ , she told herself, first an order and then a plea. _Oh let him go, let him go. You cannot go where he goes now._


End file.
